Offer Negotiation in the New Rental Landscape: What Landlords Need to Know

IN THIS ARTICLE

→ The new landscape

→ Rent amount & the ban on rental bidding

→ The real cost of overpricing

→ Challenging rent in the first six months

→ Advertising rules

→ Why keeping records matters

→ Rent review clauses

→ Timing & rent due dates

→ Pets

→ Top 10 negotiation points from 7,000+ offers

→ Professional & neighbourly negotiation

The New Landscape

At the same time as bidding wars on rent are being prohibited, rental growth has flattened in many areas and tenant demand has become more price-sensitive. Negotiation needs to become more measured.

However, in some ways offer negotiation has actually become simpler. With no fixed-term lengths and rent levels fixed to the advertised amount or lower, there are fewer variables. What does need careful attention is the rent due date, move-in timing, pets, and other property-specific considerations.

Rent Amount & the Ban on Rental Bidding

The combination of banning rental bidding and tenants’ new ability to challenge rent levels above “open-market rent” once they’ve moved in means that after 1 May, negotiations on the rent amount are likely to be limited.

The focus should shift to establishing what the genuine open-market rent is for your property, and being able to support that figure in the event it’s challenged by a tenant at a First-tier Tribunal within the first six months.

Hello Neighbour can help you understand what an “open market” rate is for your property, and we can back that with a report and data which will help if the rent is challenged at a First-tier Tribunal.

What does the ban mean in practice?

Under the new rules, landlords and agents must not invite, encourage, or accept offers above the advertised rent. The agreed rent must match the advertised amount or be lower.

This creates significant risk for landlords. Any conversations with prospective tenants need to be documented and saved. One of the reasons Hello Neighbour encourages landlords to negotiate on our platform is to ensure clear, accurate records are kept of every negotiation. This is keeping landlords safe, in practice.

The Real Cost of Overpricing

The table below shows just how quickly a void period wipes out the benefit of a higher rent. With rent growth currently at around 3%, it takes just 11 days of vacancy to cancel out a full year’s increase.

As an example, a 3% increase on a £2,000 per month property equates to an additional £720 in rental income per year. The daily rent on £2,000 is £67, so if vacant for 11 days that is £733 of rental income not received.

The message is clear: with justifiable rent increases likely to be small, it doesn’t take much of a void period for landlords to start losing money, even if they ultimately achieve a higher rent.

Challenging Rent in the First Six Months

Even if a landlord manages to achieve above open-market rent at the outset, the Renters’ Rights Act gives tenants the right to challenge that rent within the first six months by applying to the First-tier Tribunal for an “initial rent determination”.

Currently, tenants can challenge rent under Section 22 of the Housing Act 1988, but only if it’s “significantly higher” than what a landlord could reasonably expect to obtain. Section 7 of the Renters’ Rights Act lowers this bar, aligning the test with rent increase challenges: simply whether the rent is above the “open-market rent”.

Advertising Rules: What You Can and Can’t Do

When you advertise or offer a property in writing, you must include a specific rent amount. Price ranges are not permitted. A “written advert” includes online property adverts, printed adverts, social media posts, emails, text messages, and direct messages. It does not include physical ‘to let’ signs outside a property.

Once you’ve published an advertised price, you will not be allowed to:

• Ask for offers above the advertised rent
• Publish a price range and invite bids within it or higher
• Encourage someone to offer more than the advertised rent
• Tell someone you’ve received other bids to encourage a offer above the asking price
• Act in any way that leads a person to believe they need to offer more than the advertised price
• Accept an offer above the advertised rent
• In writing: The tenant must apply in writing with a description of the pet
• 28-day deadline: The landlord must give or refuse consent in writing within 28 days
• Further information: The landlord may request more details if reasonable; the deadline then extends to 7 days after the tenant provides it
• Superior landlord: If the landlord needs consent from a freeholder, they can apply within 28 days and delay their response until 7 days after receiving the freeholder’s decision

If someone reports you for rental bidding

The local council may ask for evidence of the advertised rent, the tenancy agreement, and a statement. If they determine rental bidding has occurred, they may issue a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for a first offence, with further penalties for repeated breaches within five years.

Why Keeping Records Matters

There is a real financial cost to getting this wrong. Recording precisely how any negotiation progresses is essential.

Hello Neighbour has always conducted offer negotiations on the platform. In the past, this was to ensure there was no room for confusion, and we found it worked really well. Now it’s about genuinely keeping landlords safe. When agreed terms are all captured on-platform, they feed directly into the tenancy agreement with no risk of ambiguity.

“Clear documentation protects both landlord and tenant, reduces risk, and keeps everyone safer.”

Rent Review Clauses: No Longer Valid

From 1 May 2026, landlords will no longer be able to include rent review clauses in tenancy agreements. Any existing rent review clauses will be null and void from that date.

Landlords won’t be able to agree rent levels informally with their tenants, except where the landlord agrees to reduce the rent stated in a Section 13 notice they’ve already served.

Timing: Start Dates & Rent Due Dates

Deciding on the tenancy start date and the ongoing rent payment date will be part of the negotiation. The important thing for landlords to understand is that any initial rent period (from the start of the tenancy to the first regular payment date) must be equal to or less than one month.

For example, if both parties agree rent should be paid on the 1st of every month, but the tenancy starts on the 15th of May, there will be an initial rent period of 16 days. This is acceptable from a compliance perspective.

Pets: A Right to Request, Not an Automatic Right

Under the new Act, tenants will have a statutory right to request permission to keep a pet. Landlords must consider requests on a case-by-case basis, respond in writing within 28 days, and cannot unreasonably refuse consent.

Reasonable grounds for refusal may include the property being unsuitable for the specific animal (a Great Dane in a one-bedroom flat, for instance), headlease restrictions, or health concerns such as severe allergies in shared buildings.

The Act does not create an automatic right to keep a pet but it does create a right to request one. However, blanket refusals without proper justification are unlikely to be compliant. The Act also doesn’t require tenants to take out pet damage insurance, so landlords will need to decide whether they want to arrange cover for potential damage themselves. The cost of repairing any damage caused by a pet can be deducted from the security deposit at the end of the tenancy provided it is clearly documented.

Top 10 Negotiation Points from 7,000+ Offers

We’ve seen most things discussed as part of offer negotiations.

Here are the top ten from the over 7,000 negotiations made on our platform:

1.    Garden upkeep & watering plants

2.    Cleaning responsibilities

3.    Specific appliance instructions

4.    Ventilation requirements

5.    Unblocking drains & showers

6.    Access for contractors

7.    No smoking

8.    Gutter clearing

9.    Bike storage

10.   No BBQ

These are all reasonable to include, but if you have any doubt, talk to us. We have probably seen it before.

Professional & Neighbourly Negotiation

In this more regulated environment, tone, clarity, and detailed records all matter. But this is the start of a long-term relationship, and we believe any negotiation should be transparent, professional, approachable and clearly documented.

Neighbourly.

We’ve learnt over the years that technology has advantages and disadvantages, which is why we always combine the most modern technology with experienced lettings experts. But when it comes to negotiations, we learnt a long time ago that an on-platform negotiation tool gives landlords and tenants the best of both worlds: offers align with advertised rent, agreed terms feed directly into the tenancy agreement, and there’s no chance of ambiguity later in the process.

Sources & Further Reading

• Rental bidding: a guide for landlords (gov.uk)

•  Hello Neighbour Insights